By day an occasional spindly buggy might amble along their vast width, or a solitary bullock-wagon take its tortoise way; but after dark, feebly lit by ill-trimmed lamps set at enormous distances one from another, they turned into mere desolate, wind-swept spaces.

Both horse and driver seemed to be equally affected with terror, but since the carriage was going towards the city Smith was perfectly well satisfied, and did not turn a hair even when it narrowly escaped a collision with a bullock-wagon.

A passing bullock-wagon had given her a lift, and the somewhat anxious rescue party, setting out from Billabong, had met its youthful mistress, bruised from much bumping, but otherwise cheerful, progressing in slow majesty towards its gates.

"Oh dear!" groaned poor Wilkins, one night as he lay between the major and Tom Brown on the wet grass under the shelter of a bullock-wagon covered with a wet blanket; "how I wish that the first mosquito had never been born!"